CommScope unveils data centres guide

Dubai, September 4, 2007

The guide aims to provide assistance on all aspects vital to the successful implementation of a secure and reliable data centre.

Data centres have become a technology priority for Middle East companies and institutions, particularly in the financial sector, as they seek to increase their financial position and stay ahead of the competition, according to Ciaran Forde, managing director for Middle East, Pakistan, Africa, Systimax Solutions, CommScope.

“When five minutes of downtime can mean a multi-million dollar loss to a trader in the financial industry, we believe the ‘once-neglected’ data centre has become the most mission critical system of many organisations,” said Forde.

In the growing Middle East financial sector (whether banking or financial trading), regulatory and supervisory authorities continue to increase the level of time-sensitive information required to be collected and stored. These changes not only place greater demand on data processing but may also require additional levels of security.

“In the most successful companies, IT (information technology) exits the backroom and enters the boardroom. We believe that many visionary organisations in the Middle East financial sector are following this global trend,” Forde said. “When it comes to data centres, companies should look to the potential results -- five, 10 or 15 years ahead.

“Continuously operating data centres are essential to the flow, processing and storage of business critical information,” said Forde. “Most downtime in computer systems is caused by poor planning in the data centre-- whether the interconnected data processing, storage and communications assets are designed for one room or for an entire, dedicated building.”

CommScope has launched the essential Data Centre Planning Guide to help in the setting-up of secure and reliable data centres that should help businesses reduce downtime and increase security in their data centres, the company said in statement.

Complete with diagrams of actual data centres, the 28-page guide takes planners through the details necessary to establish anything from a tier one basic centre to a tier four centre with maximum fault tolerance, it added.

The free guide covers key areas that need to be addressed for the successful design or enlargement of a data centre, including data processing, storage, physical location, access to power, cooling and strictness of security. – TradeArabia News Service